You’re right, Democrite; it’s related to the word humus for soil, or earth, just as is humanus, a being of the earth.
That’s why I always find it hilarious in Star Trek or other sci-fi shows when, instead of saying humans, they ludicrously identify people of the planet Earth as “Terrans,” under the impression that it is more proper. Not only is that the incorrect Latin derivation (“Terrestrial” is by far the best choice, especially since it already exists with precisely the right connotation), but it’s unnecessary; “human” already inherently means “of the earth.”
What do you mean? If you’re saying homo is masculinum in terms of grammatical gender, you’re right. And nauta of feminine morphology but is considered masculine nonetheless. Apart from that: can you prove that women were generally excluded when Roman authors were speaking of homines?
homo is very rarely used in opposition to mulier but that is ante-/post-classical according to L&S. In my experience, it seems to have a very mild masculine connotation, not unlike English “man(kind)” when speaking of a human in general, though this neutral sense in English is not very popular anymore. If homo could really mean a “human person”, it seems much more likely that it would be of common gender, able to be of either gender based on the person being described. As one of many possible examples, you certainly would never describe a fine woman as a homo pulcher, but there are no such issues with addressing a man as such.
Luce, as much as I wish it weren’t so, actual usage can’t be predicted reliably from etymology.
I think that homo is about as gender-neutral as it is possible to be, in a Roman context. If I told you that tres viri were outside your door, you would be sure they were three men and zero women. But if I said tres homines were outside your door, would you know what gender they all were?
Many languages make this distinction, Mann vs. Mensch, [size=150]ἄνθρωπος[/size] vs. [size=150]ἀνήρ[/size]. English is the oddball, it only has one word for both ideas.
And yet French has “homme” and Italian has “uomo”, obviously derived from homo, meaning both “human being” and “a person of the masculine sex”. In these languages, the the gender specific Latin uir only becomes adjectives and the like.
English does have “human” (though I’m sure there are a few out there who will call themselves “hu-women” and even that will be unsatisfactory since it still contains the root “men” in it). But surely everyone would think that the word “person” is completely void of any gender connotation.
